PROMISING SIGNS FOR SRA23A

PROMISING SIGNS

FOR SRA23A

Farming 340 hectares of land across his four properties in the Burdekin, Russell Jordan is always keen to try newly released varieties to see how they perform on his farms.

This season, Russell planted around 20 hectares of SRA23A from approved seed cane from Burdekin Productivity Services. It is his first year growing the variety as a commercial plant crop.

“We planted this in mid-March, which was nice and early. There was no rain, so it came up on moisture and it has been really good,” Russell said.

“It seemed to come out of the ground reasonably fast and then got going well. We didn’t have to spray too much. We fertilised and hilled it up early and it has just powered since then.

“We’ve always tried the new varieties that come out. Sometimes you might only put a few hectares in and propagate it up for the next year to see what it looks like.” Russell follows advice to rotate varieties for each crop cycle to manage disease.

“This block was Q240A beforehand. You really shouldn’t put it back-to-back. So, we thought we’d try something different.”

Russell said he is pleased with what he has seen so far. He plans to expand the amount of SRA23A next season, having bought approved seed cane for another of his farms.

He also has around eight drills of SRA23A at first ratoon from approved seed cane.

“It looks very good, too. We have held it back next to a plant crop that we’re going to cut next. It will be interesting to see what it does later in the year, but it looks good for now.”

Across his farms, Russell grows the district standards – Q240A, Q208A and KQ228A – as well as Q232A, and more recent releases SRA23A and WSRA17A .

It’s an approach encouraged by Burdekin Productivity Services Manager Rob Milla who advises about the importance of managing risk.

He has concerns about the increasing volume of Q240A grown in the district.